Two works created

Yesterday I manually added a new work, not otherwise found on LT, and two different works were created:

https://www.librarything.com/work/23880499
https://www.librarything.com/work/23880500

The work ending in 499 has all the information I added, but the work ending in 500 is the one that is listed as in my catalog. If I click on the book in my catalog, it takes me to 500. If I click on the book from the "add books" page it takes me to 499.

This has happened to me several times before, but I've never remembered to get good details and screenshots before combining the two works. In my experience they are combinable, and that pretty much clears up the issue except that there will be a {no title} edition stuck in the work for no reason.

Here's the work page for 499:



Here's the work page for 500:



Here's the author page, where you can see both works:



(ETA: fixed a typo)

Since drafting the original post here, something has happened and the {no title} work has disappeared from the author page. It shows just "Looking For Alaska (2019 miniseries) 1 copy", but there is no check mark next to it despite the fact that I am listed as the only member with that work.

The two links at the top still look the same, with 499 having all the information and 500 being the one that actually contains my book.

>2 norabelle414:

I re-calculated author/title on the "no title" work. I have now combined 499 and 500 using the workbench.

>3 lilithcat: Sorry, I should have mentioned that I was keeping them separate on purpose.

I think this is the origin of this bug: https://www.librarything.com/topic/305973 and this bug: https://www.librarything.com/topic/303847, though it doesn't explain why these two works could be combined and those cannot. Maybe they would have exhibited different behavior if many other people had added books to the works (very unlikely in this case)

For now, I still don't have a checkmark on Josh Schwartz author page, though I do show up in the "members" section, and https://www.librarything.com/work/23880499 shows no evidence that I own the book, but I expect both of those will be rectified if my cache is cleared.

Developers: also see related https://www.librarything.com/topic/334517

Is that the old issue with non-book entries added manually? It is tied to the media type somehow - I never get that when I add books, I often (always?) get it for other media types.

That explains why my manual entries worked.

>7 MarthaJeanne: Yeah... I hit this with the radio plays often. Never with proper books.

>5 kristilabrie: seems to be Paperback now but unclear what it was added as (and reading what happened there, it sounds a bit different from the usual pattern)

The one up in >1 norabelle414: is Video Recording > Streaming (so matches the usual pattern for these).

>6 AnnieMod: No, mine was a book.

Happened again, I think: https://www.librarything.com/topic/337650

This happens to me every time I manually add a video recording record. Combining my zero-copy version accessible from the catalogue view with the main work (accessible from the add books page) is just a necessary step of the process.

I thought it might be because I add "[2023 film]" at the end of the title field, but apparently that's not the issue.

>12 Petroglyph: Setting the format to something different from a book? Yeah - it seems to always make a second book for me as well when I do that...

Yes, I seem to get two works when I manually add DVDs.

OK I added The Wicker Man (the 1973 film). At first it auto-combined with the book. I seperated it out and combined it with the film which is https://www.librarything.com/work/9652813

Just uploaded my cover and apparently my work is now https://www.librarything.com/work/book/235097554

Both seem to have the same members, total copies, etc, but when I go to https://www.librarything.com/work/9652813 it doesn't say I've got it, and on the Robin Hardy page it doesn't have a green tick either https://www.librarything.com/author/hardyrobin-2, but I do shew up in the "recently added" there.

EDIT at 05:50 UTC

Seems to have resolved itself, but it is very odd the way DVDs seem to uncombine and recombine themselves.

This needs a steps-to-replicate. Assigning to kristilabrie

Earlier today I manually added a work, not otherwise found in LT, and it created these two works:

https://www.librarything.com/work/29862824
https://www.librarything.com/work/29862825

If I click from my catalog I get the work ending in 824, despite the fact that it says there are 0 editions. If I click from the "Add books" tab I get the work ending in 825.

>17 norabelle414: OK, this is great! Can you leave as-is for now?

Notes on >17 norabelle414: until I can test further:

https://www.librarything.com/work/29862824/summary - has cover image uploaded by member but is not included as the work cover, showing 1 member (norabelle414). https://capture.dropbox.com/47tuOI8Nk9r0wnup

https://www.librarything.com/work/29862825 - shows 1 member (norabelle414), no cover, and no author name. https://capture.dropbox.com/VLW9ap208ERWcVCA

>18 kristilabrie: Yep, I won't touch it.

If possible, I need steps to replicate.

>21 timspalding: If possible, I need steps to replicate.

Since I'm not the one it happened to, I can't help with that, but I notice several interesting points. First is the title has a lot of punctuation, some of it special characters: There is a colon and there are curly brackets: {}

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You {2020 film}

I'm afraid to try adding a curly-bracket work myself.

I notice that the original item cited in >1 norabelle414: was (A) also a movie, not a book (and so presumably had no ISBN), and (B) although it did not have curly brackets or a colon, it did have square brackets .

Second, I observe that item 29862824 has an author -- but an author with a single name: fimognarimichael. Item 29862825 has no author.

But author fimognarimichael, when clicked, shows up as "Michael Fimognari," who is credited only with one item. So the author is messed up in the first entry and didn't show up in the second.

I note again that, in the original example, there was one more complete and one less complete record, although it is much closer to complete than this one.

I don't know if any of this helps; I'm just looking for patterns. Maybe someone who can actually get bad data out of the database should try a manual addition with curly brackets in the name.

>22 waltzmn: My original example in >1 norabelle414: did not use square brackets, only parentheses. The canonical title for that item currently has square brackets but that was added by someone else much later.

A couple weeks ago I manually added this book to a different account: https://www.librarything.com/work/29812679/details/235209040 which also was not found in LibraryThing or in any source and does not have an ISBN. However, the media type is "board book". Only one work was created.

Others have reported this happening to them with book-media but I can't find any live examples at the moment.

>23 norabelle414: A couple weeks ago I manually added this book to a different account: https://www.librarything.com/work/29812679/details/235209040 which also was not found in LibraryThing or in any source and does not have an ISBN. However, the media type is "board book". Only one work was created.

Just adding manually -- even if adding a book that has no entries under any name -- doesn't generally create two items. I know; I've done it dozens of times! (My library is very heavy on books that are pre-ISBN, often published outside the U.S. so they don't have an LoC number either. And some predate the LoC system too.) Some don't have authors, either. I would assume that any problem with generic manual addition, even of rare works, must have been debugged by now. But my many additions (editions) don't include unusual characters such as brackets, either, hence my suggestion. It could very well be wrong. :-)

FWIW, some of mine (by no means all) have been 78 rpm recordings. So we can definitely say that non-books work.

>24 waltzmn: I seem to almost always hit that when I am adding Radio Play (Which is a personal media category) and occasionally with magazines. I will see if I can reproduce again.

Nope - even with Radio Play it did not happen this time around.

>21 timspalding:

Here is what I do to generate this issue.

1. Open the Add Manually page
   
2. Enter information into the fields Title, sorting character, author, author role, tags, media type, publication date, pagination, language, (original language, if applicable). Occasionally reading dates (both started and finished) and/or date acquired -- but the bug crops up with or without dates. The other fields are left untouched.
   
3. The title ends in [1975 film] -- usually to match an already existing record.
   
4. The media type is set to video recording. Whether media type is set to the relevant subtype of video recording does not matter.

If I do this for Peter Bogdanovich's 1975 film At long last love, two records are created. This one, which I accessed by right-clicking the link on the Add books page, and which has combined with the pre-existing copy already on LT. On the add books page, it says that "two other members" have this work, and on the work page I indeed see three members with this work. So far so good. But this record is also created, which I can access from my catalogue. On that work page, it says the number of members with this work is zero; in my catalogue, that number is one.

Both records have the same book number (235875490), but the pre-existing work number is 25303333; the zero-copy work number is 29867722. I can click "edit book" on either of the work pages and access my record.

Here are other users' that I found:
https://www.librarything.com/work/28144800
https://www.librarything.com/work/28144801

https://www.librarything.com/work/24693998
https://www.librarything.com/work/24693999

https://www.librarything.com/work/25471172
https://www.librarything.com/work/25471171 (this one has been combined so it redirects to https://www.librarything.com/work/25657247)

I added this one today with NO punctuation in the title and NO media type and it did NOT create two works:
https://www.librarything.com/work/29872772

Bump: https://www.librarything.com/topic/353124

Thanks! Please bump this in the next month or so if you think of it, I'm just getting back from vacation and likely will not have time for this for a bit longer (busy with a few other projects as well). I appreciate your patience.

>30 kristilabrie: Bump! Just thought of it.

Bump https://www.librarything.com/topic/356414

Thanks for the bump! Back from vacation with a big pile o' stuff to catch up on. Bump in another month or so if I don't get to this, if you think of it. Thanks again.

(Clearly working too fast in my test account - it's me, kristilabrie :) )

This book "The Art & Science of Bread" doesn't show my ownership on the Auher's page.
https://www.librarything.com/author/kalantymichael

>34 kirstenlund: I recalculated title/author on work page and it seems to have fixed this particular issue

>35 SandraArdnas: I checked the Auther page, but there wasn't any sort of tag showing my ownership to the book

Every book we own show a tag in front of the name of the book, that it's in our library - I'm missing that one on my book. Although it's saved in my library

>33 kristi_test_02: "Bump in another month or so..."

Bumped.

>37 DuncanHill: Thank you! I'm keeping this starred so I can revisit it before our next big bug cleanup (hopefully another one to come soon..).

>38 kristilabrie:

I've held off on fixing my example in >26 Petroglyph:, in case staff still needs it.